


The Nature of War

by Dustbunnygirl



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-05
Updated: 2007-08-05
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:15:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8007619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dustbunnygirl/pseuds/Dustbunnygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title: The Nature of War<br/>Fandom: Firefly<br/>Spoilers: None.<br/>Rated: PG, if that.<br/>Word Count: 1,800<br/>Main Character(s): Mal Reynolds<br/>Honourable Mentions: Zoe Washburne, Simon Tam, River Tam, Book, Kaylee Frye.<br/>Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own the 'verse. I just borrowed it for a little while.<br/>Credit: The two quotes included during the flashbacks come from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum<br/>Summary: "We all made promises we couldn't keep, sir. It's the nature of war."</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Nature of War

**Author's Note:**

> Title: The Nature of War  
> Fandom: Firefly  
> Spoilers: None.  
> Rated: PG, if that.  
> Word Count: 1,800  
> Main Character(s): Mal Reynolds  
> Honourable Mentions: Zoe Washburne, Simon Tam, River Tam, Book, Kaylee Frye.  
> Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own the 'verse. I just borrowed it for a little while.  
> Credit: The two quotes included during the flashbacks come from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum  
> Summary: "We all made promises we couldn't keep, sir. It's the nature of war."

Some nights, when he crawls into his bunk to sleep, Mal is haunted by the face of a young boy with wide, trusting eyes. The image comes unbidden, a flash against his eyelids as sudden as lightning and far less transitory. It lingers, even as the world around it crumbles and disintegrates and burns. The boy's soft brown gaze is full of innocence and confusion, a question lurking behind the irises that can't find its way to his mouth. 

When Mal finally jerks awake with the weight of that stare still pressing on his shoulders, a soft voice reaches out from the dream and whispers a single word into his ear. It chases him out of bed and follows him to the sink hidden in the wall. As he splashes cool water on his face, as he leans on the cold basin and stares into his own haggard reflection in the smudged mirror, the question in those big brown eyes burns a hot path between his ears and brands itself into his brain.

Why?

\--

In the shade of the old oak tree the grass is cool against the boy's calves. He sits at the edge of the pond with a book open in his lap and a neglected fishing pole caught between his crossed ankles. Every now and then, if the home-fashioned pole twitches or he sees the bit of his momma's clothesline he stole tighten under the force of a nibbling fish, he gives the crooked piece of birch a yank. Otherwise, he leaves it be. It's too hot to fish anyway, he tells himself and turns back to the book. There are wonders to be found in those pages, even for boys freshly arrived at the ripe old age of 11.

"What happens next?" asks a voice from his right, muffled by the two folded arms the speaker's face is pressed against and a large, floppy straw hat. The head raises lazily and a pair of blue eyes blink away heat-induced lethargy to stare up at the boy. Her cheeks are pink from the sun and dusted in freckles. She appears younger than the boy, but not by much. "Where are those winged monkeys you promised?"

"They're coming, mei mei, honest." He reaches out to tug at the brim of the hat, bringing it down over the impatient blue stare. "We're getting to the good part."

"You said that hours ago."

"There's lots of good parts."

"Says you." She rests her chin back on her crossed arms and stares at the still pond. Heat hangs in thick waves over the water, making the air so heavy even the bugs fly low. "I think you're just having a laugh on me, Malcolm Reynolds. I don't think there's any winged anythings anywhere in that book of yours."

"You better hush, Addy, or I'll toss you in the pond, really give you somethin' to complain about. Bet those fish would rather nibble on you than a slimy ol' worm any day."

Addy lifts her head again and pokes her tongue out in Mal's direction but says nothing else. She turns her cheek onto her arm and closes her eyes with a sigh. Mal takes that as a sign to continue and turns his attention back to the yellowed, battered pages. 

"'How, then, are we to find her?' inquired the girl. 'That will be easy,' replied the man, 'for when she knows you are in the country of the Winkies she will find you, and make you all her slaves.'"

\--

Kaylee asks him about home one night as the crew sits around the table, letting dinner settle in their stomachs. Nostalgia came as the last bites of processed food disappeared; talk turned to food they missed, then places and people. Book conjures the garden at the abbey so clearly they're all tasting tomatoes and strawberries right off the vine and can smell the fresh turned soil. Simon speaks and Osiris floats in their heads like a pristine model city trapped in a snow globe, waiting to be turned upside down and shaken until the little flakes turn everything perfect and white. River is quiet, casting Mal strange looks across the table as if every thought in his head is written across his face.

Then Kaylee turns to Mal and nudges his arm. "How about you, Cap'n?" she asks. "What's home like?"

All eyes are on him as the silence stretches on. He rises from the table, not meeting a single look. "Don't we got a ship to keep in the air, people?" 

He's out the door before Kaylee can remind her eyes to blink.

\--

She isn't his sister, not really, not in the purest sense of the word. Her dad is one of the ranch hands that works for his mother. Her mother died a year before they came to Shadow. Mal's mother "adopted" six year old Addy almost from the start. It took him a little longer, but the wide-eyed redhead with the thousand and one freckles wormed her way into his heart after awhile. Three years later she still follows him around like a lost puppy; he only pretends to mind, with a roll of his eyes as he drops an arm around her shoulders and drags her along.

They are walking home from school. It's November now, a chill settling in the air just under the rustle of dry leaves and the smell of wood smoke. Addy is talking a mile a minute, about spelling tests and how silly it is, C's and K's not being interchangeable and all. Mal listens, nods along, but only half pays attention. He reads as he walks.

Until Addy cries out and stops, a hand to the back of her head. Mal looks up; the tips of her white gloves are stained red and a rock sits on the ground behind her. Three boys linger behind, laughing and pointing. They shouldn't be laughing and pointing, he thinks as he drops the book. They should be running.

"You got something to say, pipsqueak?" the middle one asks. They're older boys, twelve or thirteen, bullies. Mal doesn't think about how much bigger they are, that he's outnumbered, how much it's going to hurt. He drops his schoolbag by his discarded book and charges at all three of them with fists flailing. Addy screams his name, high pitched and panicked. All he sees is red.

That night at the ranch, his mother is silent as she cleans the cut above his eye. Her lips are pressed together tight, weighted down with the words on the tip of her tongue. She hasn't yelled. Hasn't cursed in fluent Chinese beneath her breath or muttered his full name with that disappointed shake of her head. But her hands are not gentle as they dab at the crooked line of broken skin. He winces.

"I had to, Momma," he finally says, just to make her stop.

"You never have to fight, Malcolm." Her hand pauses an inch from his face. The rag hanging in front of his nose smells sharp, antiseptic. "You always have a choice between what's right and what's wrong."

"But they hurt Addy! They made her cry! They just picked on her cuz she's smaller and weaker. How's that right?"

His mother sighs. 

\--

Zoe finds him in his room with a half empty bottle and a picture. A mismatched pair of smiling kids look up at the camera, one with brown eyes and hair, one with blue eyes and freckles. The girl's hair is braided in tight pigtails. The little boy is using one of them to tickle her nose.

"Been awhile since you dug that out, sir," she says. Doesn't take a nod to tell she means the picture instead of the bottle. Mal takes a swig from the latter and says nothing. He doesn't look up. Zoe stays near the door and lets the silence stretch until it can't stretch a second longer without breaking. 

She opens her mouth to speak, fill the silence with platitudes if she has to just to fill it at all, but Mal beats her to it.

"She was 39 years old," he says, voice barely a whisper, rough as sandpaper raking across her skin. "Had three kids. She was...a schoolteacher. Never hurt a soul. And they killed her and everyone else on that planet just to make a point."

"Mal, it wasn't your…"

"I was supposed to protect her! I promised her I'd…" He doesn't hear Zoe move but her hand is on his shoulder. Her fingers dig in tight.

"We all made promises we couldn't keep, sir. It's the nature of war."

\--

Mal's lying in his bed, reading by the dim light of a lamp when he hears footsteps in the hall. His bedroom door opens an inch at a time to deaden the creak of old hinges. Addy's head pokes through the crack when it's open wide enough. Her eyes are sleepy and something else. Scared. It's the look she got when a storm rolled in or a nightmare chased her awake and convinced her there was a monster under her bed. He looks down at her bare feet. The toes peeking out from under the hem of her nightgown are pink with cold from the run from the bunkhouse.

She doesn't have to ask. He scoots over on the cramped twin bed until he's braced against the wall. She closes the door softly before running across the floor and scrambling under the covers.

"Mal?"

"Go to sleep, Addy. Past your bedtime."

She's quiet for a minute, long enough for him to flip the page. Then she says, "Did you get in trouble? I'm sorry if you got in trouble."

"Don't be sorry, mei mei." He reaches over and with cautious hands musses the hair on the top of her head. Gentle touch, and he watches for a wince that doesn't come. "That's what big brothers do."

"Get in trouble?"

"Protect their little sisters, silly. Now go to sleep."

Addy quiets and after awhile, Mal decides she must have fallen asleep. Just when he is sure it's safe to turn off the light and hunker down himself, as he reaches for the lamp to do just that, a hand creeps up to tug his sleeve.

"Mal?"

"Yes, Addy."

"Read me the part about the monkeys again."

Mal sighs but flips through the pages of the book until he finds the one she means. She curls into his side and rests her head on his shoulder and he starts to read. "'Once,' began the leader, 'we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master…'"


End file.
